The brothers were already known because they sued Mark Zuckerberg that he stole the idea for Facebook, and more recently in public are active as advocates of virtual currency Bitcoin. They also trade with Bitcoin through the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, so this move can be interpreted as attracting additional publicity, both on themselves and on Bitcoin. The price they paid for the short flight to the edge of the universe in Virgin's aircraft is approximately $250,000 per person.

On their blog they compared Branson's space venture and its innovation with the novelties that Bitcoin brings to the financial world. These are revolutionary ideas put into rank with the pioneering achievements of Vasco da Gama, Nicolaus Copernicus or Yuri Gagarin - who , each in their own way , changed the world , and the Winklevoss brothers hope to be the ones whose contribution will become a part of history books at some point.

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